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Cat-fish Chowder or Hog-fish

A soup made with catfish, onions, butter, Worcestershire sauce, and seasonings, simmered in boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Cat-fish Chowder or Hog-fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Skin the catfish.

  2. Boil the catfish until thoroughly cooked.

  3. Remove the fish from the pot and pick the fish very finely.

Make the chowder

  1. In a large pot, add the picked fish, chopped onions, butter, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and seasonings.

  2. Pour in the boiling water.

  3. Cook rapidly for about 30 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Catfish
Provides the flaky, tender fish that forms the body of the chowder.
Onions
Add aroma and a mild sweetness as they soften in the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and gives a smooth mouthfeel.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory, tangy depth that rounds out the broth.

The step that matters

Picking the fish very finely. Fine picking removes bones and gives an even, tender texture throughout the chowder, so no one bites into a bone or large stringy piece.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (catfish, butter, pepper, sauce, celery, thyme, parsley):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against catfish, butter, pepper, sauce, celery, thyme, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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